Work with the web services gateway
Use the web services gateway to map an existing service - either an inbound or an outbound service - to a new web service that appears to be provided by the gateway. The gateway acts as a proxy: your gateway service users need not know whether the underlying service is being provided internally or externally. The gateway provides you with a single point of control, access and validation of web service requests, and we can use it to control which web services are available to different groups of web service users.
If we have a web services gateway running on a WebSphere Application Server v5.1 application server that is part of a network deployment cell, and we want to migrate the cell from a v5.1 to a v6 deployment manager, first preserve the gateway configuration as described in Preserving a v5.1 gateway when migrating a cell.
For a high-level task view of how we configure the web services gateway as part of an overall bus-enabled web services configuration, see Enable web services through the service integration bus.
Before we can work with the web services gateway Plan the bus-enabled web services installation, ensure that every stand-alone server or cluster that is to play a bus-enabled web services role is a member of a service integration bus (refer to Configure the members of a bus) and create a Service Data Objects (SDO) repository on every stand-alone server or cluster that is to play a bus-enabled web services role.
The gateway panels in the administrative console are only available in WAS Network Deployment if we are working with a deployment manager profile. The panels are not available in a WAS Network Deployment stand-alone server profile. The gateway administrative commands are available in WAS Network Deployment under both the stand-alone and deployment manager profiles. See Web services gateway troubleshooting tips.
In WAS Versions 4 and 5, the Web services gateway was a separable component with its own user interface. In this version, the gateway is fully integrated with service integration technologies and - although providing similar functionality - has become primarily an administrative entity. It no longer has its own user interface, and it uses service integration technologies for its configuration and run-time support. See What is new and changed: Web services gateway.
Within each service integration bus we can create multiple gateway instances to partition the total set of gateway and proxy services into logical groups to allow simpler management.
To create and configure gateway instances, we can use the WAS administrative console. For administrative tasks (for example creating a new gateway service configuration) we can use a set of configuration wizards. These wizards can be accessed from within the administrative console, or from the command line. Tooling is also provided to migrate an existing gateway configuration from WAS v5.1.
Detailed instructions on how to enable web services through the gateway are provided in the following tasks:
Subtopics
- Create a new gateway instance
Within each service integration bus we can create multiple gateway instances. Create web services gateway instances to partition the total set of gateway and proxy services into logical groups to allow simpler management. The gateway provides you with a single point of control, access and validation of web service requests, and we can use it to control which web services are available to different groups of web service users.- Create a new gateway service configuration
Use the web services gateway to map an existing service - either an inbound or an outbound service - to a new web service that appears to be provided by the gateway. The gateway service acts as a proxy: your gateway service users need not know whether the underlying service is being provided internally or externally.- Create a new proxy service configuration
We can set the web services gateway to act purely as a proxy for our service, then use JAX-RPC handler lists to set the endpoints for incoming request messages for the service.- Preserving a v5.1 gateway when migrating a cell
When we migrate a cell to a later version, any previously configured gateway on any v5.1 application server in the cell is replaced with an empty gateway. Therefore we must preserve our v5.1 gateway configurations before migrating the cell.- Migrate a v5.1 web services gateway configuration
In WAS v5.1, the web services gateway was a separable component with its own user interface. In later versions of the product, the gateway is integrated into service integration bus-enabled web services, and re-implemented as a mechanism for extending and linking inbound and outbound services. We use a wsadmin command script to migrate an existing gateway configuration from a v5.1 application server to an application server or cluster on a later version.
Related:
Web services gateway: Frequently asked questions What is new and changed: Web services gateway Web services gateway Programming model APIs and specifications Making an internally-hosted service available as a web service Making an externally-hosted web service available internally